While Loki did manage to dive headfirst into the time-traveling rules of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the sci-fi plot device wasn’t something entirely new to the franchise. A few years prior, Avengers: Endgame set the stage with a time-traveling plot through the Quantum Realm. In fact, there was a moment at the end where Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) was charged with returning the Infinity Stones to their moments in time before opting to stay in the past and living a full life with Peggy Carter (Hayley Atwell).
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Technically, Rogers’ decision should have been a “Nexus event,” according to the standards laid out in Loki. While Loki helmer Kate Herron doesn’t have a definitive answer to the situation, she does want to remind Marvel fans there are two sides to every coin.
“So! I’ve been thinking about this (laughs). I’m just like [so excited]… People are going to be annoyed because it’s not a definitive answer, but also I can only really answer as a fan, right? My theory is this: It comes down to if you’re an optimist or a pessimist,” Herron said in a recent interview with The Direct. “If you’re an optimist, maybe it was okay [for] them living that way, and the branch wasn’t so severe that it didn’t need to be pruned, and that meant that they could stay together. Maybe the romantics can say somehow that managed to exist. And then the pessimists [think], ‘They probably got pruned (laughs).’”
Herron went on to give down her final ruling — judging by the TVA standards laid out in Loki, she believes both Rogers and Carter both wound up pruned by the Time Variance Authority.
“It depends on how people fall on that side of things, because in my head I guess it would be… generally branches have to be pruned and then maintained, right? But it depends. Like if it’s alternate, it would imply that it’s running alongside our main timeline, so yeah. I don’t want to definitively say that they were pruned, but by our logic in the TVA, probably. But maybe where there’s a will there’s a way, and they weren’t too disruptive and managed to live happily ever after.”
Loki Season One is now streaming on Disney+. If you haven’t signed up for Disney+ yet, you can try it out here.
What did you think of the Hiddleston-starring series? Let us know your thoughts either in the comments section or by hitting our writer @AdamBarnhardt up on Twitter to chat all things MCU!
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